


XO

by ashamedbliss



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Astronauts, Astronomy, Drama, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, Outer Space, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 00:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6447484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashamedbliss/pseuds/ashamedbliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is the sole astronaut working on Albion Space Agency's ship <i>Excalibur</i>, and his husband Merlin is hundreds of miles below him, waiting for his return in just nine days. Of course, nothing goes to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	XO

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my WIP folder for nearly two years now, so I thought I should finally post it. I don't know anything about space other than what Google/films have taught me, so apologies for any mistakes. Inspired by XO by Beyoncé (I know right), and the title is from the same song. Hope you enjoy! <3

Arthur pushes away from the console he’s working on, letting the momentum propel him through the cabin, spinning slightly. With practised ease, he reaches out for a grab handle, righting himself as much as he can before working his way over to the next screen, one that displays the status of the solar panels and oxygen reserves. Smiling a little to himself, he begins to hum the song currently playing through the ship’s speaker system, a soundtrack to the usual beeping and clicking noises of the machinery around him.

Happy that his daily checks have been completed (although days don’t really mean anything to him up here), he inputs the data from his clipboard onto his computer, sending it back down to Earth, a distant little planet out of the window of his current home.

Arthur had never really meant to become an astronaut; like all of the good things in his life, he was simply in the right place at the right time. After several years flying helicopters for Camelot’s military, he was invited to interview for Albion’s first ever space program as a united kingdom. It was only his pilot expertise that put him in the running in the first place, and bizarrely enough, he won the job because his taxi had arrived fifteen minutes late, and he had unknowingly charmed the director of the Albion Space Agency in the lift up to his interview.

Arthur’s life had changed in two ways that day; after the interview (which Arthur was sure had gone terribly wrong), a lanky receptionist with big ears and a bigger smile approached him with a cup of tea. Arthur had fallen in love with the man simply for the tea, but now, four years later, he still loves Merlin as much as he did on that first day.

Turns out if Arthur _had_ been on time for that interview, Merlin would’ve been out of the office taking notes for a meeting. To this day, Arthur remains a strong believer in ‘right place, right time’.

Until now, perhaps.

“All good Leon?” Arthur asks loudly, tearing his eyes away from the world before him, Camelot’s built up areas clearly visible in the middle of the island he calls home.

The response crackles slightly with static or cosmic rays or whatever causes interference whilst one is in Low Earth Orbit, but it’s the only response he will get when he’s the only human being not currently on Earth. Or, at least, the only one in within a few hours of his ship. “Roger, daily systems check received. Only nine more to go.”

Arthur drifts in front of the small camera at the top of the communications desk, allowing himself to smile. “Can’t bloody wait. Three months is long enough, sod doing six,” he says, watching Leon drink his morning coffee (it’s 9:51 CET back on Earth, the time zone Arthur tries to keep his daily hours working around) with a slight pang of jealousy in his chest. The stuff out of the packets doesn’t come close.

“Well, when you’re back down here nice and safe, you can moan about it all you want,” Leon grins, and Arthur rolls his eyes.

“Go do something useful, aside from teasing me. I’m going to check samples.”

The next few of hours pass easily, Arthur checking on various samples of chemicals, launched into space for study of their properties in zero-gravity environments. After logging the data on his computer, he makes his way back through his ship (quite large considering it’s a solo mission, but he’s not complaining) to his communications module, radioing back down to Earth.

“Leon?” he asks when the familiar face comes into view. For day to day contact, Leon is the main flight controller he speaks to, unless it’s Lance who works with the night team. “Can I get a met report? I want to do a spacewalk to get to the external storage.”

“Yep,” Leon says, brows furrowing as he looks distracted. “I’ll just ping that to you... Oh.”

Arthur shouldn’t let the sliver of panic at Leon’s tone run through his body, but he does. “What?” he snaps, possibly too quickly, but Leon can’t just let the line hang on that word like that.

“Nothing major,” Leon says, but the frown’s still on his face. Someone hands him a printout from out of shot. “Large solar flare observed, just two minutes ago... we had no warning. Hang on.”

Leon sounds increasingly distracted as he leans back in his chair, another printout being pushed into his hands and someone talking to him from the other side. Arthur rights himself as he begins to drift down the module, wishing he could pace as he normally would when he gets anxious about something. “Leon, for God’s sake, you need to keep me informed.”

“Sorry, Arthur... we’re trying,” Leon says, before sitting back at the computer properly. “Okay. Good news or bad news?”

“Leon,” Arthur growls, in no mood to play.

“Bad news is, the solar flare was followed by a CME--”

“For _fuck’s_ _sake_ , Leon,” Arthur snaps, and Leon looks at him with wide eyes. Arthur rarely loses his cool, but then again, his team back on Earth has never looked so anxious. “You know I didn’t take the nerdy route in. Give it to me straight.”

Leon nods, shuffling some papers in front of him. “It’s a coronal mass ejection. Lots of particles, and they’re heading straight for you. Might knock out a few of your systems.”

“Can you be any more specific?” Arthur says through gritted teeth, checking his stats on his screens. “Any in particular?”

“I don’t know,” Leon says, and the honesty is so raw in his voice that it makes Arthur pause for a second. “The good news is that it shouldn’t be too bad, though.”

“That’s good,” Arthur says, “can you--”

The ship shudders, groaning loudly and Arthur is slammed against one of the consoles, sent twirling down the cabin. He reaches out to his grab bars to steady himself as the machinery moves under him again, smacking his head sharply against the wall.

As the tremors lessen, Arthur manages to right himself but his head's still spinning. He hit it quite hard. “Arthur?”

The ringing in his ears subsides, and he can hear alarms ringing, somewhere in the main cabin. He makes his way there as fast as he can, head throbbing and the ship screaming out in agony, if wires and metal could feel pain.

“Leon,” Arthur wheezes. He presses one hand down the left side of his suit, feeling a bruise already blooming. The alarms continue to scream. “What’s happened,” he asks, but doesn’t add the intonation of the question.

“We’re looking very carefully at the situation,” Leon says, the video link flickering before it disappears from the screen completely. “Obviously a major malfunction.”

“You don’t say,” Arthur mutters to himself. His eyes scan the lights that show his vital stats, blinking twice before he believes it. “Leon.”

“You must’ve been hit with some of the waves from the cosmic flare.”

“Leon,” Arthur calls again, looking from the blinking light to the world below him out of the window, so many miles away. “My oxygen’s gone.”

“What?”

“Oxygen tanks critically hit,” Arthur says, unable to believe the words bleeding from his lips. “10% minus. Sixteen minutes remaining.” He pauses. “Fifteen,” he amends quietly.

“Back up tanks?”

Arthur swallows, throat dry. “Hit,” he says, and his voice breaks. He clears his throat. “Critically hit. Back up 70%, 69, 68...”

“You can--”

“Cylinders I use for walks are empty. My fault, fuck, my fault, God--”

“Repairs!” Leon says brightly. “You can--”

“Repairs!” Arthur shouts, suddenly energised, as if a lightbulb has pinged above his head. He pulls himself through the cabin into the next, towards where his toolkit is stowed. “What do I need?” Arthur asks Leon, determined.

Leon makes a filler noise as he looks something up. “It requires a spacewalk. You’ll need to get round to compartment 23F--”

Arthur, despite the aching pain in his chest and head, propels himself towards the airlock before he stops short. “It takes 20 minutes to get into the suit,” he says, suddenly remembering. “I’ve got fourteen of air.”

“Internal canisters, anything?” Leon asks. Arthur returns to the main console, where Leon’s video link is flickering. The alarms are still screaming.

“I said, Leon, they’re gone. There’s not enough time for anything else,” Arthur says, finding some strength from within him, somewhere from his days of battle that still resonate in his old bones. “There’s not enough time.”

“There always is,” Leon starts, and Arthur can hear people bustling around at the other end of the line. “We can--”

“No,” Arthur says. “No, we can’t. This is a station, you don’t need me to pilot this.” He sighs. “I was coming back in a few days anyway.”

“ _Arthur_.”

“Leon,” Arthur says firmly. He sighs, switching off the alarms, the sudden silence ringing in his ears. “Just make sure someone comes and collects my body, and that they know before they get here.” Arthur screws his eyes shut, preparing to speak again when Leon interrupts.

“Arthur, you can’t.”

“I’m not going to waste my last fucking minutes arguing with you Leon!” Arthur shouts finally, his head throbbing. “I... I’m not going to make it. I smacked my head too, and my ribs... I’m not in a state to fix anything right now, I can’t even _see_ straight...” He breathes, wincing. “You’ve been brilliant, Leon. I’m sorry I won’t be there for your wedding.”

“ _Arthur_.” It’s pained and Arthur hates it, but he’s powerless to stop it.

“Now,” Arthur says quietly, in a tone that leaves no room for question. “I want you to put me through to Merlin, right now. Private line. I only want you listening in if you have to, Leon, but I don’t want to hear you. Just Merlin.”

Arthur can hear Leon take a breath. “Roger,” he says, and then he pauses. “Thank you, sir.”

It looks like a sunny day down in Camelot, Arthur thinks, as he can hear the classic sound of a telephone ringing. He’s managed to ring Merlin every now and then from the space station, his husband often telling him stories of which celebrity had slept with who or how his PhD was coming along. Merlin was absolutely in love with the stars but terrified of heights, unable to become an astronaut even though he would have loved it with a passion Arthur had never managed to match.

Merlin was passionate about life, and Arthur loved him so much for that.

“Hello?” Merlin answers, and Arthur’s heart squeezes in his chest.

“Merlin,” Arthur sighs, a small smile threatening to break out on his face.

“Hey, you,” he can hear Merlin grin, and Arthur vows right there and then to not let Merlin worry. He doesn’t want Merlin to know how he died. “Bit early for a phone call, isn’t it?”

“Been up for a while now, it’s near my bed time,” Arthur lies, but he can feel himself growing tired, the adrenaline beginning to wear off, his fate accepted. “What are you doing?”

“It’s a lovely day, I was thinking of doing some gardening. I’m waiting for Gaius to get back to me on my latest chapter so I can’t do any work today,” Merlin says, sounding wistful.

“Good,” Arthur says. “You work yourself too hard.”

Merlin scoffs. “Says you. Well, it’s either do the gardening or put the finishing touches in the nursery. I want it to be ready by the time you come home.”

Tears prick at Arthur’s eyes, one escaping before it floats before his face, mocking him. “I can’t wait to see it,” he says through a throat that refuses to open, even though he knows he doesn’t have much time. He glances at the stats screen to see figures he wish he hadn’t seen.

Arthur and Merlin had decided long ago that they wouldn’t be content with adopting, even though they’d met plenty of beautiful children whom they’d had no aversion to. No, they’d decided to have children by a surrogate; Arthur’s sperm would go into the first (“because you’re older,” Merlin had said, winking, “and you might not be able to get it up for much longer”) and Merlin’s would create a beautiful second child, probably a girl whom Arthur would become too protective of when she grew older.

The surrogate, Elena, had been so supportive of them both, and before Arthur had left he’d rubbed the small swell of her belly, promising to be back to meet the first baby Pendragon.

“Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?” Arthur asks, and Merlin goes quiet for a moment. “Merlin?”

“I...” Arthur hears Merlin say, before he sighs. “I kind of accidentally let my curiosity get the better of me, and I found out what it’s going to be.”

Arthur smiles fondly, thinking of how his husband has never been able to keep a secret, remembering the day four years ago when Merlin let slip that yes, Arthur had got the job as an astronaut and oops, he wasn’t meant to have said anything. “Well?” Arthur asks.

“It’s a girl,” Merlin says, hushed, as if it’s still a secret. Arthur closes his eyes and is able to see the joy in Merlin’s. “She’s going to be perfect.”

“What are we going to call her?” Arthur asks distantly, bringing his arms up before him to cradle a baby in them. He opens his eyes as an alarm starts ringing again, hauling himself with difficulty across the cabin to silence it.

“What was that, love? Burn your toast again?” Merlin says. It’s always been a joke between them that Arthur is terrible at cooking; every time he made toast, he would set the alarm off. Every single time.

“Just a security thing. It’s fine,” Arthur says, the screen flashing at him angrily. Two minutes of oxygen remaining. “Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember the song we danced to at our wedding?” Arthur asks, looking out at the picture of Earth again. He can hear road noise and knows that Merlin is outside in nature, like the fae creature he is.

Arthur can practically hear Merlin’s smile. “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

“And you cried into my shoulder,” Arthur says with a little laugh, remembering holding Merlin so tight, vowing to never let go.

“I’m pretty sure you shed a tear or two as well, Mister Macho,” Merlin laughs, before sighing happily. “What’s the nostalgia for? Not that it’s unwelcome, just... you must be tired if you’re thinking about our wedding.”

Arthur feels his eyes drooping closed, the air becoming thinner. “Yeah. I might drop off on you, sorry. Leon will disconnect if I do, it’s been a long day.” Arthur feigns a yawn, feeling his limbs grow heavy, underused muscles already giving in. “I was thinking... you’ll have to sing that to our baby,” he says, not foreshadowing at all; his singing skills are if anything worse than his cooking skills.

“Ygraine,” Merlin says, and Arthur hears a bird calling in the background. “I want to call her Ygraine.”

Arthur smiles, wondering distractedly if he should strap himself in so it’s easier for his body to be recovered. “I love you, Merlin,” he says. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“Alright, love. I love you too,” Merlin says.

Arthur isn’t sure if he imagines Merlin singing their wedding song to him, or if he makes it up as he slowly slips into unconsciousness.

 

_And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave_

_to the dark and the endless skies, my love_

_to the dark and the endless skies_

*

“Wake up, Princess!”

Arthur didn’t believe in an afterlife, but if he did, it wouldn’t have included a madman shouting in his face.

He blinks, looking around a ship that is absolutely and definitely not his. He wants to speak, but an oxygen mask is over his face, and he’s strapped into something he doesn’t quite understand. Slowly, the cogs fall into place. “Gwaine?” he rasps, the sound echoing within the mask.

“Not the only one up here, Princess, did you forget about us? Didn’t think that we were gonna leave you just sitting there, did you?” Gwaine turns away, shouting at someone else. “Percy! Stabilise _Excalibur_ , the next shift will tackle the damage.” He turns back to Arthur with a grin. “We’re going home.”

Arthur feels sadness in his heart. “But my ship...”

“It’s only in the Navy that captains go down with their ships, Princess.” Gwaine rolls his eyes. “We’ll get all your stuff off it eventually, we’re more concerned about getting you back in one piece. Heard you got a baby on the way, right?”

Arthur nods his head as Gwaine begins to float away, before grabbing onto a nearby rail.

“And I bet you went all drama queen and scared poor Merls, didn’t you?”

Arthur rolls his eyes very weakly. Gwaine had been one of the astronauts helping to train Arthur when he was going through his initiation, and at first the close friendship between him and Merlin had worried Arthur. Turned out, however, that Gwaine merely flirted with anything and everything with a pulse.

“No matter now, we’re getting you back home. Might be a bit of a bumpy ride though,” Gwaine says with another grin, before he disappears out of Arthur’s line of sight.

Arthur squeezes his eyes shut as he hears the rockets begin to burn. He’s not ready to die again.

*

Arthur’s first encounters with gravity are spent in a hospital bed, and so when he takes his first baby steps on terra firma, two days later, they’re not quite as undignified as he’d been told they would be.

His first visitor is Leon, barely hours after he’d touched back down on Earth, and only the first because ground control was less than an hour from the hospital. He’d come out of surgery, ribs successfully reset and lungs saved, to find Leon waiting for him when he woke up. Tears in his eyes, Leon shook his hand. “It’s good to have you back, sir,” he says, pride in his voice.

“Sorry for... being a prat,” Arthur manages. “Still want me... as best man?” he jokes weakly before Leon is whisked out of the area, laughing quietly to himself.

His second visitor is Merlin, eyes red-rimmed and holding a bunch of flowers in his hands. They’re the first flora Arthur’s seen since being back on Earth. “I was so scared,” Merlin says, before he slaps Arthur’s arm. “How _dare_ you be dying and not tell me?”

“Mister Pendragon,” the nurse warns from the other side of the bed, as Arthur groans, lips dry.

“You were just going to leave me with that as our last conversation?” Merlin asks, hysterical. He starts crying again, dumping the flowers on the table and grabbing Arthur’s hand. “Jesus fucking Christ, Arthur. I hate you so much.”

“I love you too,” Arthur croaks out, utterly exhausted, and Merlin starts laughing through his tears.

*

A month later and Arthur is discharged from hospital, fully re-acclimatised to life on Earth. Except, of course, the three mugs he’s broken when he’s let go of them and expected them to just _stay there_.

He’s sat in a pale pink nursery, Merlin by his side, and a tiny baby in his arms. “She’s so perfect,” Arthur says, voice full of awe.

“Our tiny star,” Merlin says, equally as choked up as his husband. “Our beautiful Halley.”

Halley gurgles as she grows tired, her face eyes bright blue. After everything that had happened, a tribute to Arthur’s mother didn’t quite seem fitting; they had to pay their respects to the stars that had shaped their lives so irrevocably.

Merlin glances at Arthur, who begins to rock Halley to sleep. “ _First time_ ,” Merlin begins singing, and Arthur smiles. “ _Ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes_...”

Arthur looks out of the window to the night sky, and he smiles to himself, completely content.


End file.
